Rattle wrote:

Zobot and other worms and variants have hit networks since Sunday. A sketch shows which pests try to detect or undo rival pests, according to F-Secure.

"My worm can beat up your worm!"

would it be in bad form for me to say that mine could beat up yours ;)

(yes that was just a joke, jesus, you people just take everything I say too seriously)

--Abaddon

would it be in bad form for me to say that mine could beat up yours ;)

In this context, it would be style. Bad form would be to say that your worm was bigger. That would be too far. Several reasons.. Not the least of which is you didn't have a worm.

Rather, you had the equivalent of refined plutonium that was not yet weaponized. At one point your company was about to have its sales department pass it out little "yellow cake" baggies as swag. Later, it and Cisco would instead set off the PR equivalent of a dirty bomb. The quest for routers that can withstand nuclear attacks slogs on. Given that ARPANET was designed with that in mind, the whole incident rhymes with this analogy.

(yes that was just a joke, jesus, you people just take everything I say too seriously)

Oh please. No one takes anyone seriously.. I sure as hell hope not, at least not right now, because I can think of many good jokes. All of which might be considered bad taste and/or form.

So what are you going to do with your fame now? Huh?! HUH?! :)

You know you are screwed... There is no living this one down. For PhreakNIC, I think we need to get you a t-shirt that says "Woah, what meeting did I wall into?" on the front, and "I'm not afraid of people I should be" on the back.

Its great to see you've come out of the foxhole. I hope that life doesn't suck excessively for you right now. This was a hurricane strength shit-storm.

Rattle wrote:

would it be in bad form for me to say that mine could beat up yours ;)

In this context, it would be style. Bad form would be to say that your worm was bigger. That would be too far. Several reasons.. Not the least of which is you didn't have a worm.

Rather, you had the equivalent of refined plutonium that was not yet weaponized. At one point your company was about to have its sales department pass it out little "yellow cake" baggies as swag. Later, it and Cisco would instead set off the PR equivalent of a dirty bomb. The quest for routers that can withstand nuclear attacks slogs on. Given that ARPANET was designed with that in mind, the whole incident rhymes with this analogy.

(yes that was just a joke, jesus, you people just take everything I say too seriously)

Oh please. No one takes anyone seriously.. I sure as hell hope not, at least not right now, because I can think of many good jokes. All of which might be considered bad taste and/or form.

So what are you going to do with your fame now? Huh?! HUH?! :)

You know you are screwed... There is no living this one down. For PhreakNIC, I think we need to get you a t-shirt that says "Woah, what meeting did I wall into?" on the front, and "I'm not afraid of people I should be" on the back.

Its great to see you've come out of the foxhole. I hope that life doesn't suck excessively for you right now. This was a hurricane strength shit-storm.

no that part about people taking things too seriously, was for the 6 intelligence agencies and the fbi reading my blog...

I'm either in the eye of the shit-storm, or its almost over...things are looking up...

--Abaddon

no that part about people taking things too seriously, was for the 6 intelligence agencies and the fbi reading my blog...

Hey, seven is my favorite number! Yeah, I know what you are talking about. When the shit-storm hit shore, I was more then a little on edge due to the hosts showing up in our web-server logs. It was like a whos-who list of entities concerned with communications infrastructure security. Including a number of hosts that where clearly anonimized...

I figured the best reaction was (and remains) posting good content, sharing opinions, viewpoints, clue, and whatever else we got. Why not? Its like dealing with a vicious dog about to attack. First step is to not show or feel fear, then make your boundaries clear and stand your ground. Unless you exhibit a direct threat, it will either stand down or retreat. At best, you might gain its trust. Woof woof.

From what I've been able to tell, we picked up regular readers in those communities. I don't see many of these hosts going away, but its not like I've been checking at regular intervals.. I simitaniously care and don't care.

I'm either in the eye of the shit-storm, or its almost over...things are looking up...

That's good. Let us all know what we can do to help you out. There isn't exactly a union for people involved in InfoSec/InfoWar research. We have to look out for each other.

I am very proud of you, you stood your ground and did the right thing.

I'm also proud of the reaction from the people around. From when things initially when down to some time after, MemeStreams users were accounting for the majority of the search results in all the various search engines about the situation. We did lead the message in the public forums. We coordinated enough to stagger it out and make sure our message stayed present and in the forefront. We saw the language we were using work its way into mainstream news stories covering it. We corrected/lambasted people showing lack of clue or disseminating incorrect information. In short, everything worked as it should. We waged a decentralized PR campaign, almost completely by reflex. From articles on the net, to flyers passed around Defcon... I hope this had a positive effect. I'm pretty sure that none of "our people" did anything stupid..

There is much that can be learned from this. What was learned from the situation with Billy and Virgil was put into practice here. Next time someone gets screwed with for doing the right thing, we will be even more prepared, our reflexes will be that much better, and our coordination will happen that much easier.